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Rise of the PoisonWings
There are worse things than monsters in the jungle. Ever since the mysterious death of Queen Kauri, the LeafWings have been in chaos. The peaceful SapWings and ferocious PoisonWings have split across the nearly-healed fractures left by decades of separation, each new splinter vying for control over the shattered kingdom. Rowan wants nothing more than to be normal. Ever since she was a year old, she’s been treated not as a dragon, but rather a living weapon for Redwood’s army; the extraordinary strength of her leafspeak, a rare power that allows her to communicate with plants, doesn’t help either. Lily wants, above all else, to be special. She’s just another face in the crowd, a drone destined to fight and die in a pointless war for control over a fractured tribe. The only thing remotely special about her life is her brother’s banishment--and it’s the one thing she wants to forget. Tiger has believed herself to be ordinary for all of her life. Born to ordinary parents in an ordinary city, there’s nothing truly special about her; her scales are pretty, of course, but beauty was the most she’d ever hoped for. But as she nears her Metamorphosis, she learns that she possesses a power that is rare, beautiful--and dangerous. As the increasingly fierce war between the two factions begins to spell the destruction of Pantala, it’s up to these three dragons to keep the tribes afloat and find the dead queen’s missing daughter, Wolfsbane... before it’s too late. ❊ ❊ ❊ PROLOGUE Seven years ago... The thick, muggy nights of Pantala’s grand green forests proved to be quite the annoyance for the great dark queen. She’d slipped out of bed at an hour others might deem painfully early; the three moons were only just beginning to slide down from their zenith in a sky still spattered with thousands of glittering stars. Hemlock wouldn’t mind; he knew of her tendencies to traverse the halls at late hours. Especially when her guts felt like they were strangling themselves inside her belly. Kauri winced and let out a slight hiss, pausing to contort herself in such a way that the aching relented for just a minute or two; she slipped into her mental mantra quickly enough. I am strong, I am strong, I am strong, she thought furiously, biting back a growl of discomfort.'' I do not need anyone’s help.'' She muttered a curse under her breath and thought back to earlier that night, when the pain had first begun, shortly after the feast with the Alliance. Hemlock had urged her to seek assistance from the palace’s staff of healers; maybe she’d eaten something bad or contracted some sort of stomach bug. She’d rejected his suggestion--in fact, she’d scoffed ''at the idea of having been served bad food--and gone ahead to prepare for bed and go to sleep. Now, she wished she’d heeded his advice; the doctors could’ve given her some herb or other treatment to stop the pain. The aching in her stomach was starting to grow quite unbearable, like a tiny HiveWing was tearing through her guts. She wanted to dig her talons in between the scales and tear the pain out; if it killed her, so be it. At least it wouldn’t ''hurt ''so moons-cursed bad''. She growled and spat, pressing her talons tightly to her stomach and releasing the pressure in an attempt to stop the pain, before roaring angrily and storming towards the healers’ hall with a lash of her tail. “Stupid chefs, stupid food, stupid feast, stupid HiveWings, stupid'' alliance'',” she spat. A sleek figure, dark scales turned fully black by the shadows of night, poked her snout out of an ornately-carved door. “What’s wrong, mother?” She questioned, green eyes lingering on her mother’s clutched talons and furious expression. “Are you alright?” “Of'' course'' I’m not alright, Blackthorn you'' idiot,” She snapped, unfurling her massive dark wings. “I can feel my guts thrashing in pain and I need'' to see a healer.” Blackthorn looked at her with mild interest in her green eyes; those two gleaming gems that flickered with a perpetual glimmer of intelligence. “Bad food at the feast, I suppose?” Kauri grimaced and nodded, wrapping her wings around her belly. “I suppose you’re going to ask me to escort you to the healers now,” the black dragoness said, shrugging the woven silk blanket off of her shoulders and stretching her wings until the joints cracked with satisfying pops. “Unfortunately for us, it’s very late--or rather, early.” Kauri hissed with annoyance and arched her spine like a cat before settling back. “Since your brain seems to be full of dandelion fluff and samaras tonight, I’ll say this for you slowly;'' I am the queen'', and the servants have to do whatever I want. I can wake up a doctor at two in the morning and force her to treat me and she can’t complain. That’s how this works.” “Well,'' Mother'', in that case,” Blackthorn said through gritted teeth, forcing a smile, “I should be able to escort you just fine. You’ve got absolutely no need to worry yourself, Your Majesty.” Either not noticing or willfully ignoring Blackthorn’s sudden snarkiness, Kauri turned to her and nodded. “That would be just wonderful of you, dear,” she hissed through her pain. “I'' assume'' you know the way.” ❊ The dark dragoness slunk out of the healers’ hall, face an emotionless mask, betraying none of the feelings swirling around inside of her. Her pace was swift and purposeful, aiming straight for the royals’ quarters; she had someone she needed to talk to. And he was going to love the news she carried with her. She knew the route by heart--nine years of being essentially confined to the palace had done well for her; she knew everything in the palace. Every hidden alcove, secret passage, dusty old cellar, protruding branch… all of it was tucked in its place in the vast library of her swift, dark mind. She reached her destination just as quickly as she’d expected to, and pried the carved double-doors open carefully, before slinking towards her brother’s vine-draped bed. “Cowbane,” she murmured, reaching a wing in between the curtains of woven vines. “Cowbane,” she repeated. “Wake up.” The black-green dragon growled and thrashed, flicking out a wing and whacking her in the face. She let out a calm, annoyed breath--if LeafWings could breathe fire, it would have been a near-opaque cloud of smoke--and stabbed her claws into his soft underbelly, enough to pierce but not enough to genuinely harm. He shot awake, hissing and spitting, the silver drops along his sides glittering in the low light. “HiveWing! I’m going to kill you. I’ll kill you all.” Blackthorn resettled herself and wiped the blood off of her talons with a smug feline grin. “Glad you’re awake, dear brother,” she purred. “Because'' I'' have some very important news.” Cowbane shuffled himself and grunted, woven blanket still hanging off one shoulder. “What?” His sister smiled smugly and folded her wings. “Our dear, delightful mother is dead.” ❊ CHAPTER 1 The sapling trembled in front of her, its thin branches reaching upwards to grasp at the faint sunlight that filtered in from between the twisting branches that hid the Sap Infantry's camp from aerial patrol. The longer she focused, the more the sapling crept upwards, climbing eagerly to the sky just barely out of reach. A crown of tiny buds formed and burst into soft, summery green leaves, and the trunk began to thicken and sturdy itself. She shifted, allowing some pride to flow through her. This was the furthest she'd ever gotten! It almost looked like a real tree- And then it happened, as it inevitably did, every single time she tried to direct the plants to grow how she wanted. Something distracted her, or she slightly unfocused her mind, or she caught onto another plant's leafy signature--and she lost control. The tree rocketed upwards, feeding off her power like a store of subterranean rainwater, and tangled itself into the ceiling of greenery that towered stories above her. She flopped down onto the ground miserably, and gave a deep and dramatic sigh. "Darn it," the young LeafWing grumbled, flipping her face in a vain attempt to keep it free of dark earth. "This never works. I’m useless." "You aren't useless, Rowan. You're learning," the dragon sitting across from her assured, voice calm and even. "It takes practice to learn the intricacies of leafspeak." He gently brushed one striped green wing through the branches of an earlier experiment, gesturing to an uneven row of half-grown saplings. "Like those; a month ago, you couldn't even convince them to bloom, but now you can. See? You're improving." "Not fast enough," Rowan moaned, clapping her dirt-flecked talons to her face. "Queen Redwood needs me to be ready to fight by next rain, but at this rate, I won't be ready until the next century." She huffed again, before pulling herself into a rough, slouchy sitting position and scowling comedically at her instructor. "Nonsense," Mahogany purred, folding his green wings. He always looked so calm; all brown and green and red and dignified. Rowan wished she could be so peaceful; but she knew it was an act. She'd seen him cancel lessons, or break down in the middle of them and dismiss her early; she knew that the death of Gingko still weighed heavy on his heart. "I know, I know; 'a tree that grows too quickly is the first to fall in the storm' or whatever," she snorted. "I've heard you getting screamed at by Redwood. I know about the deadlines, and the encroaching forces, and all that." "Actually, I was going to say that you do have the right to be stressed out, considering your current circumstances," he replied, amusement clear in his pale eyes and soft voice. "But if you'd like to quote me without knowing the meaning of my words, I suppose that's fine by me." She shrunk into herself, suddenly feeling guilty. "Sorry, Mahogany. I'm just--" Rowan threw up her wings and roared her frustration at the sky. "--in a tough spot, y'know?" "I understand. Take all the time you need." He smiled comfortingly. She slouched back, sighing and tilting her chin up to the sky, allowing herself to fall deeper and deeper into her usual spiral of anxieties. If she reached out, she could almost feel the cracks forming in her mind; run her talons over them and sink them in, prying away the plates of armor her mind had built up to reveal the dark, roiling mass beneath. And the darkness would consume her whole; she'd sink into it, pulled further down and down and down by thousands of vines of solid terror, never to escape. Something about the inevitable terror she felt from thinking about everything she kept pinned down was oddly comforting, as if knowing she was never alone, so long as she had her nightmares. Well. It wasn't that comforting when she put it like that. A melodic cacophony of whistles and chirps filled Rowan's ears, wrenching her back to reality. Though to the untrained ear--and by untrained, she meant a dragon of the Poison Legion--the calls sounded very bird-like, Rowan had heard her friend practicing late into the night enough to recognize her voice. "Silver!" A petite, silvery-pale LeafWing flew into the clearing, yelping as she tried to land in the tree-filled clearing. "Hello, hello, hello!" The dragoness squeaked, shifting her hold a large woven basket she held in her arms. "I brought snacks!" uwu filler picnic scene here poison legion attack here Category:Content (Gøssamer) Category:Fanfictions Category:Fanfictions (Incomplete) Category:Fanfictions (Fanon) Category:Genre (Tragedy) Category:Genre (Romance) Category:Genre (Adventure) Category:Genre (Prophecy) Category:Genre (Mystery) Category:Mature Content